Thomas Morrison Barr (1834-1903)
1903 Obituary [1]
THOMAS MORRISON BARR, born in Glasgow on the 29th April, 1834, obtained his preliminary engineering training first as a pupil and subsequently as an Assistant of the late Mr. Thomas Kyle, under whom he made a survey of the Clyde and took soundings of that river between Glasgow and Port Glasgow, in preparation for the Act constituting the Clyde Trust.
In 1860 he became Chief Assistant to Wylie and Peddie, of Edinburgh, for whom he was engaged on work in connection with the railway from Peebles to Innerleithen and on the Kirkcudbright and the Berwickshire lines. He acted as Resident Engineer on the construction of the Kirkcudbright line, and had charge of that line until it was amalgamated with the Glasgow and South Western Railway in 1865.
Mr. Barr was then appointed to the Engineer’s staff of the latter railway, and in the winter of 1868 he inspected the whole of the Company’s system and made a report on the permanent way.
In 1871 Mr. Barr entered the service of the Caledonian Railway Company as Assistant to the late George Graham, for many years Chief Engineer to that Company, and was engaged in designing and superintending the carrying of new branch lines, the extension and renewal of stations, and other works, chiefly in the Glasgow district.
On a redistribution of the duties of the engineering staff in 1880, Mr. Barr was appointed Engineer of the Northern Division, comprising about 350 miles of railway, and including the Callander and Oban line and all lines north of Greenhill to Aberdeen, and from Arbroath and Dundee to Oban.
Within the last twenty years about sixty viaducts and bridges in the Northern Division have been renewed under his superintendence, while about thirty stations have been reconstructed.
Mr. Barr retired from the Company’s service on the 31st January, 1902, and died at his residence, Willowbank, Barnhill, Perth, on the 11th February, 1903.
He was elected a Member of the Institution on the 7th February, 1852.